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BWDSB may seek new home

The Bluewater District School Board is looking for somewhere to move its administration offices, which are now at the board's education centre in Chesley.

Trustees gave staff direction at a board meeting Tuesday to investigate the financial implications of moving the administration to an unused board building, such as a vacant school, and report back to the board.

Board chair Ron Motz said the board has a $6.5 million mortgage on the education centre.

“The Ministry (of Education) doesn’t cover it. We have to cover it out of our administration line. We can’t take it out of anywhere else in the system,” he said.

“We’re going to investigate whether it would be feasible to renovate or modify a school to accommodate this central administration,” said Motz, who noted that the education centre is about the same size as the former Bayview school in Owen Sound.

“We have a number of properties that we are no longer using as schools right now,” he said.

Motz said staff have been asked to see if it would feasible to move the education centre into an empty school.

“And if it was, then we would go a step further and see if it would be financially feasible to do something with this building.”

The administration building was completed in 2009 at a cost $10 million. The board pays about $500,000 per year on the mortgage.

Director of education Alana Murray said the board has a responsibility to use its financial resources wisely.

“And we heard very clearly from our constituency that they want us to be responsible with our dollars. If we can’t walk our talk then we are not being responsible,” she said.

Murray said it’s incumbent on the board to look at the vacant schools and determine whether there are cost savings for the board to move to a different location.

“We are just gathering information to bring back to the trustees for further discussion. Then we are doing our due diligence and being responsible," Murray said.

Murray said this option of putting the administration offices in a surplus school wasn’t available back in 2008 and 2009 when the education centre was built.

“Most accommodation reviews have occurred since 2009 when we moved into this building. The conversations about this building were occurring 10 years before the final decision to build this building,” Murray said.